Developing Student Voice Through Great Content and Strong Instructional Practices

Mike Taglienti

So much dependsupon

a red wheelbarrow

glazed with rainwater

beside the whitechickens.

—William Carlos Williams, "Red Wheelbarrow"

How can something so simple carry so much weight? Like so many others, I sat absolutely bewildered after reading William Carlos Williams' "Red Wheelbarrow" in high school English class. I was speechless, and not in the profoundly affected sense; I didn't have the tools to engage or respond. When my first class of students similarly receded with nearly every text we explored, it was easy to empathize. Unanchored, formulaic reading was muting my kids.

The Problem

For a class of complex learners, the basal texts I used last year were lifeless and inauthentic. Students were uninterested in the material that was all too often designed to teach a specific skill in isolation. Moreover, each lesson was disparate and unrelatable, unconnected to other learning, the students, or their world. Even the planned questioning proved to be stifling. The students struggled reading the texts but had even more difficulty responding in any meaningful way. Unequipped and unmotivated, they were silenced by frustration.

My students cannot afford to be silenced. Three-quarters of my kids speak English as a second language. Two don't speak any English at all. The average reading level peaks somewhere around two grade levels below expectancy, with a handful of students decoding at a kindergarten level. Some of these children doubt whether school is a place for them, especially in the face of more immediate needs. Physical well-being and mental health are relentless areas of concern.

The Shift

It wasn't until the beginning of my second year of teaching that I was forced to confront that farmhouse poem again, exploring the lessons of a new curriculum with fellow teachers and administration. As a team, we decided to scrap the ineffective basal texts for a more rigorous approach. Though I was excited for a change, you could imagine my skepticism. The curriculum, Wit & Wisdom, demanded engagement, critical thinking, and output in relation to a poem that I hadn't even understood in high school. Increasing the cognitive demand seemed counterintuitive to promoting student response, but September proved me wrong.

Wonder sparked it all. From our first exploration of Anne Frank's biography, I noticed a level of engagement that I had never previously seen in my classroom, especially during literacy. By incorporating art, videos, and kinesthetic learning routines with the high-interest and authentic text, my diverse students had many opportunities to access the content and develop their voice. I noticed more questions, more curiosity, more interest, and more involvement. Students quickly learned to think deeply about texts and found success in doing so.

When we began reading a complex nonfiction text about the anatomical intricacies of the heart a few weeks later, I worried the students' confidence would waver. The book was far above their reading level. Hooked by their initial curiosity, we embarked on a highly deliberate organization of tasks and questioning, each building off what preceded. We began by simply recording observations, allowing all students to connect and wonder. Next, we organized these ideas, summarizing what was happening in the story. With a solid base of understanding, we reread the text through narrower lenses, revealing text structure, craft, and author’s purpose with each new read. Finally, we distilled these findings to synthesize a theme and build our knowledge of the world.

Given many different opportunities to excel, students' struggles became productive, connecting ideas from lessons past to experience success with grade-level skills. With students even more confident in their ability to think for themselves, their ideas blossomed, as did the sharing of those ideas with one another. The students were so enthralled with the content and conversations that I scheduled a field trip to the local science museum a few weeks later to dissect real hearts. It was the highlight of my teaching career so far, following the lead of my kids on their quest for more knowledge.

The Progress

By the time we started studying poetry and reading our first chapter book at the end of the first quarter, my kids were comfortable being insightful. One of my kindergarten-level readers asked to spend countless lunches with me reading his novel, because he was "a good reader now" and wanted every word for himself. My shyest girl brought in a huge collection of poetry she had written after school, proudly performing her work in front of the class with more energy and expression than I could ever teach. Perhaps most inspiring, my students transitioned flawlessly from English to Spanish and back again in an hour-long Socratic seminar about what it means to have a great heart, literally and figuratively. For an hour I sat silently, admiring my students, their growth, and their novel ideas.

When we finally explored "The Red Wheelbarrow" as a class, there was anything but silence. They annotated and collaborated, illustrated and analyzed, synthesized and distilled. "It means even small things can be important," one student explained. "Or small ideas," another added. How can something so simple carry so much weight?

I'd be lying if I told you that after one great semester of challenging my students with complex reading material and rigorous assignments, all my students are achieving grade-level skills and are proficient readers and writers. We still have a long way to go. Yet it's amazing what kids can do once they feel competent and successful; my students audibly cheered when I distributed the young adult novel Hatchet last week. It seems almost boundless, their potential right now, the potential of my kids. I'm excited to push them further as they build their innate ability to think and share what they know. So much depends upon their continued success.